Posts by Doctor Syntax

Rental electric scooters to clutter UK street scenes after Department of Transport gives year-long trial the thumbs-up

Re: Rental vs privately owned

"Anyone seen the basis for this?"

The rental company will be paying some sort of licensing to the local authority or DfT. You don't pay them anything - except, of course, everything you're paying already.

One map to rule them all: UK's Ordnance Survey rolls out its Data Hub and the juicy API goodness that lies therein

Re: Could this become the official UK postcode and address database?

The Geoplace website is just about as bad as the W3W one, differing only in having fallen victim to someone from the crayon dept. who thinks that an animation of the site's name is far more useful than presenting information.

Re: Could this become the official UK postcode and address database?

"Have you seen What 3 Words?"

I've seen that the link you gave doesn't display anything without opening up to a load of Javascript and thus fails my first test for any website: must at least be able to say what it's about with the most basic of browsing facilities.

Having got past that AFAIK it's just a geographical coordinate system. Postal addresses are more than that. They have to deal with multiple addresses at the same location such as Flat 1 or 1a Acacia Ave etc.

Germany is helping the UK develop its COVID-19 contact-tracing app, says ambassador

It has a fatal flaw: Not Invented Here.

It’s happened again: AT&T sued for allegedly transferring victim's number to thieves in $1.9m cryptocoin heist

Re: I have questions...

And if it's the second option, then why the hell does anyone trust this crap?

TFA describes him as a technology consultant. You'd think he'd know better.

One does not simply repurpose an entire internet constellation for sat-nav, but UK might have a go anyway

Actually the "no ferries" shouldn't really have been a problem. They could have been leased when needed.

Re: Cut your cloth...

"a number of terrestrial masts across the UK to provide additional beacons"

That won't be of much military use other than during UK-based training.

Re: Could be worse

"a Scotland - NI bridge"

Which would still have been hung off the A75.

Re: Why Galileo?

"we just need better contract drafting lawyers!"

I think the problem was that our contract drafting lawyers were too good. The ones who drafted the EU only clause at our behest when we were in the EU and didn't want those outside the EU to use what we'd paid for.

"find the most effective way of delivering it"

It sounds easy if you say it quickly enough.

Actually there's also the problem of finding the money to do it. And the additional problem that about half the country don't want you to do it and you hope enough of them are going to have to vote the next time round. And the overriding problem as to whether what you decide you want to do will prove to have been a good idea when it confronts reality and the law of unintended consequences.

But, apart from that, simple.

"I am sure it's possible calculate position based on a signal from any three Sat's if their positions are knownbecause it is fairly basic maths"

The calculation requires very accurate timing signals from the atomic clocks in the satellites. The atomic clocks that navigation satellites have.

Re: Re assume...

"They obviously have some plans for it which aren't immediately apparent."

If they're not immediately apparent how can they be obvious?

"Government Tory therefore government stupid."

I'm instinctively conservative - with a small c. But this particular government is formed out of a clique that took over the Conservative party. They've shoved out anybody who showed an inclination to do details and rely on rhetoric and Dunning-Kruger powered hubris.

Gove made comments, aimed at the Civil Service, about group-think. He and the rest of the present government need a mirror.

"Who can justify spending 92 million on a report?"

You're forgetting the printing costs. It'll be printed on pulped £20 notes and gilt-edged.

NEC insists its face-recog training dataset isn't biased, but refuses to share details of Neoface system with UK court

"the Court of Appeal judges hearing last week's case seemed pointedly uninterested in wider legal and societal issues raised by the Cardiff AFR deployment."

Could that be because they expect it to go to the Supreme Court on those issues?

Beijing's tightening grip on Hong Kong could put region's future as an up-and-coming tech hub in jeopardy

Re: "we need clarity on what the laws will involve before we can decide anything"

"This manoeuvre from Beijing is a direct consequence of violent protests last year,"

AIUI the protests last year were against the looming imposition of this law.

Someone must be bricking it: UK govt website for first-time home buyers snapped up for £40,000 after left to expire

"Or did the new owner have an attack of conscience?"

A £40k attack of conscience doesn't seem likely Maybe HMG raised a dispute.

University of California San Francisco pays ransomware gang $1.14m as BBC publishes 'dark web negotiations'

Re: So, nothing important was encrypted

"Ah yes, but that expenditure comes out of a different budget you see!"

One that's only available after the event.

Apple said to be removing charger, headphones from upcoming iPhone 12 series

Re: Low-voltage DC is just USB now

"How many home electronics gadgets ...actually need a mains voltage supply these days?"

USB chargers.

Re: There is no price...

I thought it was the larval stage of the wire coat-hanger.

Re: There is no price...

"I've got dozens of USB chargers"

So does everyone. The funny thing is you can never find one when you want one, at least not one with the USB variant you were looking for and certainly not the high current one you know you have somewhere.

Finally, a wafer-thin server... Only a tiny little thin one. Oh all right. Just the one...

Re: How to blow up 1000 houses all at once...

Or a thermocouple which seems to be the usual option on domestic properties.

Re: "We ran out of available outlets."

"That is a sure sign of insufficient planning."

What do you mean, insufficient? It was perfectly sufficient when it was done 10 years ago.

Elec-trickery isn't the only utility that can get knocked out by industrial kit. Some years back a dyer had a new gas-fired boiler installed and until they got their own supply they connected it to the domestic supply main. Then fired it up the first time in the middle of winter. The initial surge took the pressure down so low that pilot lights went out. It took a whiles for the gas engineers to work out why the pressure was so low in the mains.

Poetry in lockdown: hiQ to Supremes / Please leave LinkedIn scrape ruling / well enough alone

"Much of this intelligence is derived from accessing the LinkedIn profiles of existing employees."

....and believing it!

17 syllables. Nice one.

It's National Cream Tea Day and this time we end the age-old debate once and for all: How do you eat yours?

Re: I solved this when I was eight

I've also heard "skun" (rhymes with stun).

That's a new one on me. I's the great thing about el Reg. There's always something new to learn.

Re: I solved this when I was eight

Not even in Yorkshire, where that pronunciation form is common ( e.g. the number "wun" )

Not in this part of Yorkshire.

Re: It doesn't matter..

"it depends what side of the border"

And which border. In fact it varies considerably throughout England and probably elsewhere. Fortunately SWMBO and I both come from "shone" areas.

Nearly right. Apply butter - so far so good. The jam and then cream. Why is this option not in the survery?

Re: It doesn't matter..

But how do you pronounce "scone" - to rhyme with "shone" or "stone"?

Laws on police facial recognition aren't tough enough, UK data watchdog barrister tells Court of Appeal

Re: There's several issues with sitting judges today

Sometimes I wish it happened like that with manorial rolls. Somebody says something in the English of the day. The roll is written up in Latin. The editor translates it back into modern English for publication but what was originally meant. I'm sure vill didn't always mean the same thing in different circumstances but what did it mean when it didn't mean "township"?

I'd have thought that T-shirt would only be effective against the sorts of systems it was tested against. A more effective way of fooling facial recognition systems would be a picture of someone else's face.

Re: There's several issues with sitting judges today

"Would you want you wife or servants"

I sometimes wonder whether that was a barrister who realised he was on the wrong side of history deliberately sinking his case whilst plausibly appearing to argue it.

Re: There's several issues with sitting judges today

"The legal language of the law does not capture how technology works either"

If you try to capture how technology works in legal terms your laws become outdated very quickly.

If you applied such a concept to cars you might have to have separate legislation for causing death by dangerous driving for petrol, LPG and diesel ICEs, whether turbocharged or not, straight EVs, hybrid EVs and plug-in hybrids with Parliament being asked to find additional time to legislate on hydrogen powered vehicles.

Sensibly, that's not how it works. Legislation simply says what's legal and what isn't irrespective of the means by which an act is carried out. One of the functions of judges is to apply that in a changing world. Legislation changes only as new stuff makes new things possible or, as with the various DPAs, experience dictates that changes are necessary.

Re: There's several issues with sitting judges today

Most of these people claim to have an "iPhone Galaxy Lumia", or that their laptop is an "iPod Latitude Pro".

Can you prove those claims?

Brit police's use of facial-recognition tech is lawful, no need to question us, cops' lawyer tells Court of Appeal

"Liberty had not correctly understood how NEC Neoface worked"

Does it need to understand how it works if it knows what it does?

"The Respondent employs AFR Locate at specific locations in the South Wales Police's area of responsibility. It could not lawfully or practically 'track the movements of individuals as they move around the country'."

The practicality could be addressed by deploying at more locations. If they claim the present deployment is lawful how many more deployments would it require to become unlawful? If it's not possible to answer that then maybe its no lawful now.

Lockdown team building: Actualise the potentiality of your workforce... through the power of video games

Team building - a sure sign your Human Remains dept has too much time on its hands - or just too many hands.

After 84 years, Japan's Olympus shutters its camera biz, flogs it to private equity – smartphones are just too good

Re: Nah

Maybe I should try some more recent cameras but (a) an LCD screen on the back of the camera is a nuisance as I can't focus that close without taking my glasses off (b) I find it difficult focussing on the horrible LCD eye-level viewfinder and (b) too often any action shot is missed by the time autofocus has cone its thing. What I really need is a digital SLR camera - a real SLR, not one of those faux SLRs - that takes my existing lenses but not at L-series prices. It looks as if I have to write off the investment in Leica lenses.

Re: Nah

"Honestly, you're not describing Olympus."

Unfortunately he was describing Leica. Several nice R lenses, no digital camera to take them

US govt: Julian Assange tried to recruit hacker to steal hush-hush dirt and we should know – the hacker was an informant

Re: Their case must be pretty weak, if ...

"file with enough to get the ball rolling (in this case, the extradition request) ... Then file superseding indictments"

I wonder how well that will play with a UK extradition process. AIUI the extradition is allowed against a given set of charges and facts The court might not appreciate being on the receiving end of a bait and switch.

Beware the fresh Windows XP install: Failure awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth

I had to rewire various bits & pieces round the phone master socket for neighbours who run their business from home - they'd got a new puppy.

Re: There's a rat in mi kitchen...

"I once spent a fruitless evening chasing a mouse around the spare bedroom"

A trick picked up from dealing with escaped lab mice at school. Drop a duster on them. It might take several tries before you succead.

Maybe she found believing it easier than not believing it and that might have been part of her problem.

Re: Almost mouse free

When I was very young we had both a cat and a dog. One of them brought a young, live rabbit into the house. While everyone was chasing round trying to catch it the other arrived with another.

We're no longer helping UK Post Office persecute postal workers with our shonky system, says Fujitsu

"The problems with Horizon 1 and 2 were not apparent to the Board,"

They seem to have been apparent to anybody else who followed the saga, or at least not the actual problems but that there appeared to have been problems.

After huffing and puffing for years, US senators unveil law to blow the encryption house down with police backdoors

There's a very simple test as to how much these people would want it if they understood what it meant.

Would they be prepared to have all their online account IDs and passwords published for all to see, all their bank statements for, say the last 10 years, all their emails, all their other messaging device data, all their medical records? Ditto for family members.

It should be a required test for legislators proposing this sort of legislation to publish this up-front.

Put up or shut up.

Former UK Labour deputy leader wants to know how the NHS's contact-tracing app will ensure user privacy

Given that nobody's yet prepared to say to what extent, if any, antibodies provide immunity that wpld be a non-starter. OTOH now that vaccines are entering phase 3 trials some such information should come out of them.

Re: Do as Estonia did

"That is what the Estonian identity card does. Two-way transparency."

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they.